Subscribe Feed (RSS)25 random things about me
February 15th, 2009 by genelewis | 4 Comments | Filed in self referentialityThis is a Facebook meme but I am cross-posting it here.
1. The matter composing my body was formed more than five but less than 14 billion years ago by a fusion reaction occurring at the center of an enormous ball of plasma.
2. When this star ran out of fuel in its core, it went nova, pushing the carbon and other elements that compose my body out into the universe.
3. Gravitational forces eventually brought these elements into orbit around another ball of plasma where they condensed into a planet.
4. By at least 2.4 billion years ago, my ancestors formed on this planet out of organic chemicals that stored and transferred information via self-replicating nucleic acids.
5. My ancestors multiplied and diversified over trillions of generations through random genetic variations.
6. This led different types of organisms to find separate niches for survival and reproduction, thus allowing the most successful to pass on their genes.
7. About 150 to 250 million years ago, a branch of this genetic lineage had become what we call mammals, with sweat glands, hair, and mammary glands that they use to feed their young.
8. A branch of these mammals evolved into human beings between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago.
9. My earliest traceable female human ancestor lived about 140,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia, Kenya or Tanzania.
10. My ancestors began migrating and eventually spread all over the world between between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago.
11. The language I speak originated among Anglo-Saxon people who invaded England at about 449 AD from the regions of Denmark and northern Germany.
12. This language was further influenced by more waves of invasion from Scandinavia in the 8th and 9th centuries and Normandy (modern-day France) in the 11th century.
13. My ancestor Daniel Ross was a Scottish trader who came to the United States in the 18th century.
14. He married a Scots-Cherokee woman named Mary McDonald and they had 9 children, including my ancestor Andrew Ross and his older brother John Ross, who would become Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
15. In 1835, Andrew Ross signed the Treaty of New Echota, trading Cherokee land in Georgia for land in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
16. This treaty, which culminated in the Trail of Tears, was signed against the wishes of John Ross and a majority of Cherokees. Most signers of the treaty were later assassinated by Cherokees loyal to John Ross, though Andrew managed to escape.
17. Other of my ancestors lived in the 19th Century in the village of Belgorodka, in a region along the western Russian border known as the Pale of Settlement.
18. This region was the only place in Russia where Jews were allowed permanent residence.
19. Today it is part of the Ukraine.
20. My great-great-grandmother came from Belgorodka to the United States through Ellis Island on Oct 5, 1906, eventually setting in St. Louis, Missouri.
21. Her son, my great-grandfather Louis Chuver, was on a Navy ship outside Pearl Harbor on the day of the raid, though fortunately far enough away to not be attacked was on the US Neshoba, ready to invade Japan when WWII ended. He was 37 and a radar man. He was drafted after Pearl Harbor even though he had 2 kids, 15 and 5.
22. My mom was born in Washington DC and grew up in St. Louis and Oklahoma.
23. My dad was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Oklahoma and California.
24. At 4:10 am, September 11, 1981, I was born.
25.
Pictured here are some Colorado potato beetle larvae, currently in the process of eating my potatoes. I’ve always wondered where these things come from. They only ever show up on potato plants, but they are almost always on those plants, and in force. But how does a critter with such a limited diet manage to be so widespread? I live in an urban area, no hub for potato agriculture, and the plants only got there from the throwing old vegetables at the brick wall on the side of my house game.
D.C. pictures can be seen 